Introduction

Spacebot is a Slack bot that you can interact with to view images and information about space. It makes use of information from NASA including their ever popular Astronomy Picture of the Day and mars rovers data.

spacebot adds a new /spacebot slash command to your slack channels to allow you to easily see new and interesting images about space, astronomy, mars, and more. See the usage section below for details on the lists of available commands.

NASA currently has two rovers that are exploring the surface of Mars, Curiosity and Opportunity. Opportunity was launched in 2003, while Curiosity was launched in 2011. Spirit was also launched as the second rover of the pair in 2003 but became disabled and ultimately decommissioned in 2011.

Curiosity Rover Profile

Install to Slack

Add to Slack
  • Click the Add Button

    One click process to install to your Slack Account.

  • Success!!

    Type the slash command /spacebot help to get started.

Usage & Commands

After installing spacebot, there are several "slash" commands spacebot understands. Check back as more commands will be added, or run /spacebot help within slack.

APOD

The Astronomy Picture of the Day is one of NASA's most popular websites. Each day a different image highlighting our universe with a brief description will be featured.

/spacebot apod Display today's APOD image
/spacebot random Display a random APOD image from anytime
/spacebot apod date Display the APOD image for the given date. The format for date is
YYYY-MM-DD

Mars Rovers Photos

The rovers sub-command returns data and images from the three recent Mars Exploration Rovers (MER). Spirit and Opportunity were launched in mid 2003 as a pair to explore opposite sides of Mars. Curiosity is a more recent rover launched in 2011. You can read more about the upcoming Mars 2020 Rover, currently being developed by NASA.

/spacebot rovers helpDisplay the rovers sub-command help
/spacebot rovers infoDisplay information about the three rovers with links for even more information.
/spacebot rovers cameras listDisplay the list of onboard cameras. Theses can be used to filter the images. You can also use a value of 'all' to get images from all cameras.
/spacebot rovers photosThis will display the most recent images from the Curiosity Mars rover. It will include a mix of photos from all available cameras.
/spacebot rovers photos name camera dateDisplay a list of images from the given rover/camera/date combination. One or more parameters can be omitted and appropriate defaults will be used. Please note that images may not be available for a given rover/camera/date combination.

Sound good? Install & get exploring

Add to Slack

🚀 Install spacebot now and start finding your favorite Mars and space photos now.

Built by Michael Holtzman

This website and the spacebot Slack bot was built and maintained by Michael Holtzman. The bot and website are open source, please feel free to submit new features or submit a PR for a bugfix or enhancement.

Contact Me

Email
mholtzman@gmail.com